To Boldly Go

Astronaut movies do not tell us about the future; they tell us about the future as seen through the concerns of the present. (Where is the shiny middle-class future that the Jetsons promised us in the early ’60s, with its robot maids and flying cars?). The earliest space travel movie, made a decade before the first World War, is preoccupied with industrialization and diplomatic squabbling. The sci-fi movies of the ’50s are marked by Freudian psychology and anti-communist paranoia. By the NIxonian ’70s, the paranoia has been redirected toward our own government.

And now comes Gravity (pictured), a space spectacle that gives drifting astronaut Sandra Bullock time to ponder her place among the infinite stars while she awaits rescue. Maybe, the film suggests, at a time when we’ve all but abandoned space flight and are too preoccupied with geopolitical and economic hardships to gaze at the heavens, what we really need from an astronaut movie is an opportunity for healing.

Here, then, are ten classic astronaut movies, Pour yourself a glass of Tang and read on to see tales of where we thought we were going someday told us instead about where we’ve been.

film making a formula business. one hit formula creates many such commodity like Apollo 13 .once awarded best feature in Oscar. since Apollo to gravity,expected technical monotony is the same but thrilling images with sound is better.

In the movie Gravity we are reminded of the complexities and risks associated with life in space and/or maintaining functioning technological innovations in space. How strangely coincidental that the movie was released during a time when the government shutdown has caused havoc for NASA employees and NASA contractors.

GRAVITY is the best space movie up to date, it deserves to be seen in every Imax theater 3D, Sandra and George did a perfect job. You have got to see this movie, A bit incredible, but don't forget "it is a movie" congratulations to the Director.

@eagle11772 That is a great movie. But better watch it alone, as most viewers will just die of boredom. Right on par with 2001 Space Odyssey. Gotta give it to them, they got the spaceship interior and Europa moon terrain just perfect (as I knew what I'm talking about :).

@DeanJackson I saw "Journey to the Far Side of The Sun" about 30 years ago, but haven't seen it in TV listings since. It's like it dropped off the face of the Earth. I thought it was a pretty good movie.

@rockloto Gravity is so far from being realistic, that it became b-movie for me. Hubble, ISS and Tiangdong in line of sight sharing the same orbit? Clooney falling? Bullock several hours in space suit without diapers? Come on. It is acceptable in space operas, but not in "realistic" sci-fi.